


dusk

by Rhavia



Series: featherbed [3]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhavia/pseuds/Rhavia
Summary: As he ties the last of his leathers, he catches her eye. She is fully dressed and waiting, but for what he is not sure. Truth be told he had half expected her to be gone when he awoke. He had heard the Hound talk of her as cold-hearted, heard how Jon saw something different behind her eyes, and from Davos how Lady Sansa often did not recognise her. But right now, with death beyond the door of the forge, he had never felt he knew her better. Last night had been more than just sex to her – it may have started just that, but he had felt it in the way she had reached for him: from need, not want.Follows on frombeforeand happens prior toafter.





	dusk

**Author's Note:**

> Wish I could stay up to watch 8x03 when it airs at 2am but I signed up to help work with doggos tomorrow, so I'll be on a social media ban for some 18 hours after the episode airs haha

The sound of the horn jolts him awake. He shifts, his cloak inching down his chest, vision a haze in the darkness until he realises the torches have long since burnt out. The air is cold, so much colder than it has been, soaking into the bare skin of his shoulders. Even the late night wind after hours working by the fire pit wasn’t nearly as bitter as this. The morn should have come but he can barely see his own breath before him, and this was more than just darkness. This is winter, true winter, brought down from beyond the wall, and the chill he feels in his bones as that reality settles is not from the cold alone.  
  
He turns to Arya, laying still next to him, her shoulder brushed against his arm, the distant wail of the horn not a shock to her. She doesn’t move; her jaw trained tight to mask her emotions, but her eyes have always been where she is the most expressive and he can see them waver.  
  
“Did you sleep?” Gendry asks. He doesn’t mean to. He can see the creases under her eyes and he knows the answer. Even having worked himself to exhaustion at the forge the past days and nights, he knows he wouldn’t have slept if not for her. Fear would have wrapped her pretty little claws around him, shaking the sleep from his skin, if not for the wolf lying beside him. It must be easier for those who haven’t been beyond the wall, he thinks; they have only heard of the army of the dead like something from a twisted fairy-tale. Jon, Ser Jorah, Beric Dondarrion, the Hound – perhaps his journey North had not been long enough, for he couldn’t see how they could remain so calm in the face of death. Death came to every man, but to be slain by the fallen, by remnants of men instead of those with blood in their veins, was something far worse. A hollow death.  
  
“No,” she replies, and he can feel the heat of her breath beside him. She knows death, she had said, and looked forward to seeing the face of the enemy. He wonders what fear she does feel.  
  
There is a wealth of noise outside. Men rushing to their positions, their footsteps clanking against wooden posts amidst calls for armaments. Their steps hammer like the beat of his heart but he feels no shame in being afraid. This isn’t a war like the game of thrones, where no matter the outcome the common folk will suffer and die, and common folk he is; if they do not win this war, Westeros becomes a cold and frozen place and humanity dies at their hands.  
  
Arya slides out from under the warm furs of his cloak and fear curls between the hairs on his arms. She begins to dress briskly, and when he follows her lead and faces the cold against his naked skin he hisses. She was born in summer but raised in the snow, and very little seems to chill her bones.  
  
As he ties the last of his leathers, he catches her eye. She is fully dressed and waiting, but for what he is not sure. Truth be told he had half expected her to be gone when he awoke. He had heard the Hound talk of her as cold-hearted, heard how Jon saw something different behind her eyes, and from Davos how Lady Sansa often did not recognise her. But right now, with death beyond the door of the forge, he had never felt he knew her better. Last night had been more than just sex to her – it may have started just that, but he had felt it in the way she had reached for him: from need, not want.  
  
If they are to meet their ends on the other side of that door, Gendry wants her to know.  
  
“Arya—” he begins, but she sweeps the distance between them and presses her mouth to his in a long, hard kiss. _Don’t,_ it says, and her eyes echo the warning when she pulls back.  
  
He ignores her, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes shut tight. She had had her say last night; which was nothing at all, bodies talking instead of mouths. “Arya,” he says again, firmer, feeling her tense, “You may not need to say anything, but let me have this.”  
  
He thinks of the Arya he knew on their way to the Night’s Watch, how she had done a piss poor job of pretending to be a boy and yet to her luck they travelled with idiots. Of the Arya who had used Lommy’s death to shield him from the Lannister army, thinking faster than he ever could have. The Arya who had put blind faith in a stranger, playing him at his own game, for them to escape Harrenhal. The Arya who had offered him a place in her pack, when her trust in others had long died, and he had been foolish enough to refuse. Arya, who despite everything, had chosen to spend her last moments with him.  
  
Arya, standing before him now, her forehead pressed to his in this last moment of reprieve.  
  
To put his thoughts into words is to make them real, far more real than they are already, he realises, and he understands now her lack of them. They well in his chest, catch in his throat. “Don’t die,” he breathes instead, requesting a promise from her in lieu of a declaration, the urgency thick, “ _Gods_ , don’t die.”  
  
It’s a prayer, really, not that he has ever believed in any Gods, not with what they have done to the world.  
  
Her next breath is a snort and he can sense the smile on her lips before he sees the ghost of it when she pulls away. Her hand itches to the sword at her belt, eyes flickering to the barrel she had left her lance atop last night. The silence haunts him as she reaches for it. _If I can’t protect her, let it,_ he thinks desperately, knowing too well he would be of more hindrance than help.  
  
“The pack survives,” she says in little more than a whisper. He catches it, just, but it doesn’t sound like it is meant for him; it’s a mantra for herself, her family, and he feels he has intruded. But her gaze rises to meet his after it’s uttered and then she is gone, slipping out the door to meet her sister and leaving her newly crowned omega behind.


End file.
